Prima Pars
93. Divine Power (Q. 25, a. 1): Active and Passive Ability in God
Class of 2007-06-14
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/093-divine-power-q-25-a-1-active-and-passive-ability-in-god/

[0:00] After the consideration of the divine knowledge and the divine will, and those things which pertain to them, like truth and falsity and life and so on, it remains to be considered about the divine power.

[0:17] And about this, six things are asked. First of all, whether in God there is power. Secondly, whether His power is infinite. Third, whether it be omnipotent.

[0:39] Omni means all, right? He's all powerful. Whether He can make those things which are past to not what? To not be past. Yeah, not have been.

[0:59] Whether five, whether God is able to what? Make those things which He does make, or to what? To pass, make pass away. Yeah, those things that He has done. And six, whether those things He's made, He could have made what? Better. Sure. Okay. An interesting question, son.

[1:26] Now, let's talk a little bit about the word potencia there a bit. A little review here, first of all. So in Greek, you have the word dunamis, and in Latin you have potencia. Now in English, how do you translate these words, son? Well, sometimes you translate by the word what power, right? Okay. Sometimes we translate by the word ability.

[2:16] Now, in the ninth book of wisdom, Aristotle takes up ability or potency or dunamis in Greek, the word dunamis, and act. He begins by distinguishing two meanings of the word dunamis, son. And sometimes in English, I'll translate them as the

[2:45] ability to act upon something, right? And then the ability to undergo or to be acted upon. Okay. Aristotle will point out that the first meaning of dunamis is the ability to act upon another,

[3:21] the ability to move or to change another. Right? Okay. This would be the first meaning of dunamis. And then the second meaning of dunamis is its ability to be acted upon by another, this ability to undergo. And he says the second meaning refers back to the first, right? So in a sense, my ability to kick you

[3:53] is answered by an ability to be kicked by you, right? Your ability to be kicked is by is in a way goes back to my ability to kick you. Okay.

[4:05] Now you can kind of see that in the Greek and in the Latin, what words, right? Because dunamis is where in English we get the word dynamo, the word dynamite, right? And that's obviously the active sense, right? But the word in Greek was then moved to the second meaning, right? Okay. Now the same way the word potencia, right? In Latin, the first meaning potencia would be this active sense of potencia, this ability to act upon, this ability to move another, right?

[4:42] This ability to transform another. But then it was moved to the second meaning here, right? The passive sense of potencia, right? And as Thomas would point out, when you contrast potencia with actus, you're thinking of the second sense, because his first sense is based upon actuality, right? Okay. So if I distinguish between the ability of the teacher to teach, right? Because he actually knows something, presumably, right?

[5:18] So why the student is able to know, right? But in this second sense, huh? Now you could translate dunamis in Greek or potencia in Latin by the word power in English, right? Although sometimes they translate kind of more of a transliteration by potency, right? But now when you hear the word power in English or the word powerful, you obviously think of that first sense, don't you, right?

[5:54] Okay. But has the word power been moved to the second sense in English? No, see, no, it's stuck in the first sense, right? This is something that happens when we learned our philosophy from the Greeks or from the Latins. Sometimes the native word was not what moved, okay? Now we got a problem, right? Because how do we translate then these two uses of the word dunamis or potencia in English when the English word hasn't moved from the first meaning to the second meaning?

[6:42] We got a problem, right? Okay. This happens in other words. You go back to the the fifth book of wisdom, and Aristotle takes up the very important word phusis, huh?

[7:03] Which is the Greek word for nature, right? Okay. And he points out that the first meaning of phusis is birth. Okay. And then the second meaning of phusis was the source of the baby within the mother. And then the third meaning of phusis was a generalization. Second meaning, the source within not only of birth but of any change. And this is the sense of nature that we have in mind when we speak of natural philosophy.

[7:39] The natural things are things that have within themselves a cause of their own what change, right? And then it's carried over to matter and form, which are the active and the passive sources of change in the living body, and last of all, it's carried over to the nature of a thing in the sense of what it is, right? And of course, that sense would be found in these sciences.

[8:07] We speak of the nature of God, the nature of government, the nature of the triangle, right? The nature of the syllogism, right? That's too broad to characterize natural philosophy, right? The first meanings, birth and the source of the baby within the mother, are proper to natural science to talk about those things, but it's too narrow to characterize natural science as a whole, right? Okay. So it's that third meaning, the intrinsic cause of motion and rest.

[8:36] Aristotle defines it more fully in Book Two of Natural Hearing as the beginning and cause of motion and of rest, and that of which it is first as such and not by happening. Okay. Now the Latin word nature is like that, right? And the original root meaning of nature was again what birth, right? Okay. And it was carried over to these other meanings, huh? Now, if you take the native English word here, has it been moved through all those meanings?

[9:14] No. So you got a problem here about how should you translate "fusis," right? You can translate by "fusis," but that doesn't help very much. You can translate by "birth," which is the native English word, but then you don't have all those other meanings thrown out. Usually, we translate it by the word "nature" because even in English, you can see in other words in English like prenatal, postnatal, nativity,

[9:43] native things of this sort—the root meaning of birth, right? And I got a problem, you see, because when you hear the word "nature" in English, though, we usually think of nature in the sense of what a thing is—the last meaning of nature. We've lost the root meanings, right? So either you go back to the Latin or the Greek and go back and follow the meanings up, or else you try to extend the English word.

[10:13] Now, in some cases, it seems to me that one should make the attempt to really extend the English word. And one example of that is the the word in Greek there, the word hodos via road, okay? And the first meaning of road is is what you walk on or drive on, right? But then all the Greek philosophers spoke of a road in the mind, even the early first guys, Parmenides and so on.

[10:45] And it doesn't seem to be too far a stretch in English to speak of a road in our knowledge, right okay? But you may have a difficulty, you know, using the word birth, given its multiplicity of meanings and the fact it hasn't moved in English, right?

[11:02] Now Shakespeare, right, in Romeo and Juliet, when Friar Lawrence is talking there, right, he says, "For not so vile but earth doth live, but for the earth some special good doth give, right? Not so good, but strained from that fair use, revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse." What sense is he using that? He says, "revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse." Stumbling on abuse Well you're revolting from your what?

[11:36] Nature, yeah. And nature, the sense of what you are, right? So, since Shakespeare has moved the word, see, but it's a little bit of of prudence, you might say, to say, well, should we try to, you know, extend the English word, or should we just?

[11:55] Well, this is the problem here with the word power, right? See, the word power has is stuck on the first meaning, and how do we do that, right? So, my my own solution is to adopt the word ability, right? I point to the word power to bring out the fact that the first meaning is the active sense, right? But it seems to me in English we do use the word ability in both of these senses, and and we use the word able in both these senses, right?

[12:27] You probably heard from the time we did a little bit of the ninth book, of the Metaphysics, some of you, I think. How my stock example was that of a bricklayer getting into the ring with Cassius Clay or some other boxer like that, and before they stop the fight, I hope they stop it. You'd say, well, you know, all the ability is in the what? Cassius Clay, right?

[12:51] the bricklayer doesn't have any ability, right? And you're thinking of the first meaning of the ability, right? He's able to act upon Berkus. Berkus hasn't got anything in on him, so.

[13:04] That's the first meaning of ability, right? But then, if you stop and you think, yeah, yeah, but Burquest is beatable, he's breakable, he's bustable, and so on.

[13:19] Using the word able, aren't you right? So, by what kind of ability is Burquest beatable or breakable? Yeah, yeah. In the same way, we speak of the paper as being burnable, right? I mean, are you speaking of an ability that's in the paper, right? There's an ability to act upon the fire. No, it's ability to be acted upon by the fire in this way that will consume the the thing.

[13:50] So, or the other example he used always give was, you know, the grand pianist sits down to play the piano and plays perfectly, you know, this piece of Mozart, wherever it is. I heard us at a concert one time. The great Walter Gieseking played the piano. You know, you could have heard a pin drop. The audience was that respectful, you know. And he played Mozart first, and then the whole thing, you know, had twelve encores.

[14:18] He had to stop it, you know, so he tried to take care to do and signal to the audience, "This is this is the last one." But you see, you see the ability of the pianist, right? See, you wouldn't think of the piano as having ability, would you? No, but the piano was able to be played, right? The keys weren't sticking. Great Walter Bisi King, right?

[14:42] So there's some kind of ability, but you know, in the sense it looks back to the ability of Gieseking, right? See, he's able to play the piano, but in some sense you'd say the piano is able to be played, right? He couldn't play this table here, but the table in front of him didn't matter much about concert. You know, he can make little finger marks, but he couldn't play, you know.

[15:04] Okay. So you can see in those examples there of the boxer and so on, right? Or again, the cook, right? You know, so the cook is able to prepare this meal, right? But the vegetables, you know, give way to the knife and and so on, right? So you see these two different senses, right? And so the English word ability, I think, moves. The English word power is stuck in the first meaning, right?

[15:35] So I refer to power being out as kind of a sign that this is the first meaning, right? But the fact it doesn't move, I mean, I have to use this other one. Some people want to use the word potency, but that's kind of important. So

[15:54] one of my friends says we should use the word potency. I said you can't move the word; that's your problem. I'm seeing the audience say about some people that can't move the word, you know.

[16:06] Okay. So this is important to have in mind when you look at this first distinction, right? Because God will have the ability or power, right, to move other things, but not this passive one, right? you can't move? To the first one proceeds thus: it seems that in God there is no potency, right? No ability, huh?

[16:34] For just as first matter has itself to ability, right? So God, who is the first agent, has himself to act. But the first matter, considered by itself, is without any act; it's pure ability, right? Therefore, the first agent, which is God, is pure act without any what? Without any ability, yeah. Okay.

[17:05] Of course, the first matter is ability, undergo form, right? Okay. Goes back to the first book of natural hearing. So when Thomas is discussing the opinion David of Dinant who said that God is the first matter, he says he most stupidly taught, right? And it's not a gratuitous insult on the part of Thomas, you know, that he's fed up with the guy. But you couldn't get anything further away from God, huh?

[17:35] He said God is a it was a rock. There'd be some actuality there, right? So in taking something as pure ability in the passive sense, you couldn't get anything further away from pure act. So he most stupidly taught. He said God was a tree. That would have been closer to the truth. At least it has something alive in some way. His first objection in the thing. I mean, first matter is pure ability.

[18:05] How can you have ability in God? But here he had the mistake, you know, in a sense of what equivocation, right? Mistake for mixing up different senses of the same word, which in this case is the word what ability, right? Moreover, according to the philosopher in the ninth book of wisdom, that's the book on ability and act. Ah,

[18:38] the act of any ability, right, is better than that ability, huh? Imelior is better, being said the act, huh? For form is better than what matter, right? And action than the act of what ability. This is a little more difficult, right? For it is the end of the act of ability. But nothing is better than what is in God, right? Nothing is better than God, because whatever is in God is God Himself, right?

[19:16] Therefore, no ability is in God. So Aristotle is saying act is better than ability, huh? Because ability is for the sake of act, huh? So if God has ability, and whatever is in God is God, then it'd be something better than God. Obviously absurd, right? Moreover, ability is the beginning or the source of an operation, right? What they're doing, what the doing of God is, is very essential, since in God there is no accident.

[19:51] But of the divine essence, the divine nature, the divine substance, there is no beginning. Therefore, the definition of ability does not belong to God, right? Aristotle defines his ability. He first says the active ability is the beginning, resource of motion in another as other, right? And then the passive one is an ability of motion from another, right? Okay. So the idea of being a beginning of something is in the idea of ability, huh?

[20:19] So how can there be ability in God, right? Thomas will make some very interesting distinctions, right? But there's more a the idea of ability in God, not with respect to his operation, unless you want to just say in the way of speaking, right? But it really is the beginning of the thing he what, exterior thing, yeah. So he can say the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

[20:50] But he can't say that there is a real distinction between God's ability and what he does and the doing itself. Moreover, it has been shown above that the knowledge of God and His will are the what, cause of things.

[21:15] But cause and beginning are the same thing, right? Therefore, it's not necessary to assign to God some ability, but only knowledge and will. That's a very interesting objection. But against all this is what is said in Psalm 88: Potens es Domine, you are powerful, and there's truth in your truth in your surrounding.

[21:49] So Thomas begins. I answer: It should be said that there is a twofold potency or ability, as we've been speaking here before, namely the passive, right, the ability to undergo or to be acted upon, which in no way is in God, right? And then the active ability, huh?

[22:14] Which is necessary to place in God in the highest, the fullest way, huh? For he has manifested each thing according as it is an act and perfect.

[22:30] By this it is the active beginning of something. But something undergoes or suffers. That's an interesting example there, because in Greek and Latin the original meaning here is to suffer. But suffer always has in English, like original words in Greek, the meaning of what something bad, right? And in English, suffer is stuck on the bad meaning.

[23:06] Why in Greek, in Latin, it's moved from the bad sense to a good sense, to a sense of undergoing that perfection. And in in the second and third book about the soul, right, Aristotle says that sensing is a suffering, right? But the Greek word is moved from suffering to what undergoing, right? That the senses know as a result of being acted upon by the exterior object, and then when he talks about the understanding, our understanding, he's saying that understanding is an undergoing, right?

[23:44] And but the English word suffering is what stuck in the first meaning. And so in trying to capture the Greek and Latin word, I use the word undergoing, because undergoing perhaps keeps something of the original sense, right, of something bad, right? So I'm under the weather. What does that mean? I've been acted upon by the weather in a way that harms me. But then undergoing is more able to be moved, right?

[24:20] You can see that the wood undergoes activity and so on of the carpenter, and it's really being perfected, right, not being destroyed. So something suffers undergo, right? According as is as lacking and imperfect. Now it has been shown above in the consideration of divine substance and so on, and the question on the simplicity of God, that God is pure act, right? And simply and universally what perfect.

[24:56] Well, there's again that idea of simply perfect. Now incidentally, in the chapter on perfect in the fifth book of wisdom, Aristotle distinguishes between the thing that is simpliciter perfectus, which is God, as even Averroes says, there in the commentary, and the way which all the things are said to be perfect, secundum quid. Because God is what called simply perfect. That means lacking nothing. Why Homer is the perfect what poet?

[25:30] He lacks nothing that a poet should have. But that's not everything. Mozart is the perfect musician, right? And you have to you know consider you know what a poet does, right? But mainly what the poet does is to make his plot, make his characters, and then make make the words in which they they speak, right? Everybody, Aristotle says that Homer taught all the other Greek poets how to make a plot, and then Hegel is good when he talks about Homer's characters.

[26:03] You know, a comparison to the characters in the French tragedies, one-dimensionalification of some facet. Why he says the characters of Homer are like a diamond, you know, all these facets to their characters, you know, well-rounded, you know. So, and then both Homer and and both Aristotle and Hegel, you know, praised the the words of Homer, right? You know, you know, you know, throws a lance, you know, the lance is striving to get into your heart, you know, you know, really comes alive, you know, and so on.

[26:34] Beautiful language, and and Hegel is very good on on the great similes of Homer. You know, these terrible battle scenes, one of these similes with these attention, you know, gives that expansiveness to it, huh? You know, when the great warrior comes into battle, you know, and he's knocking people down, and so on. The further he gets into the enemy lands, the more he slows down. Of course, he compares at Homer to a rock that comes down the hill, you know, roaring and knocking trees down, you know.

[27:02] And as finally rolls down, finally slows down, starts to halt. Beautiful comparison. This does it. So he's got everything a poet should have, right? He is. So Aristotle can call him by antonomasia the poet Homer, you know. And the same way that our forefathers in the Federalist Papers, you know, quote Shakespeare, but don't call him Shakespeare, but as the poet says, he is the poet for us, right?

[27:31] Beautiful thing. So anyway, Aristotle says that God is what simpliciter perfectus, right? Other things are perfect in their kind, you know. Okay. It's a perfect woman, right? It's everything a woman should have, right? But that's everything. Tell that to a woman. I used to rush him on the way up. Sometimes you know, you get a woman calling in, right? You know. And sometimes you remark, you know, well, it's one of my ten favorite names for woman, right?

[28:11] But if it's not one of his ten favorite names, he'll say that too, you know. He'll himself in trouble, and he's kind of kidding that woman. The woman's name was Janet. It's not one of his. Oh. He doesn't like that name, you know. Yeah. Particularly, you know, and and so he's kind of joking about it with the woman in the line, and she says, "Yeah," he says, "You'd better get off the line if you're in trouble."

[28:31] He says, "What I'm trying to do is get off the line." He says. He's got to be marking you. He gets himself into those positions. You think he knows better, you know. Yeah. Is it Rush? Is anyone's favorite name? Yeah, but I mean, someone did. I remember asking a girl to dance some years ago, and you know, in high school or something. And very nice girl. Her name was Maxine.

[28:55] I said, Oh, I never said totally. I thought about it. I think the awful name for a girl, Maxine. You know. Someone just had a baby there. My wife knows there, and the two could work, you know. Maybe her Morgan Rose, though. Morgan, what a name! I can't think of a one that literature, right? Morgan, what a thing! But anyway,

[29:24] so it's been shown above that God is pure act, in the treatise on the simplicity of God, and He's simply right, and universally perfect, right, lacking in nothing. Nor in Him can any imperfection have a place, right? So that's why God is good, and nothing bad in God. Whence to Him most of all does it belong to be an active beginning of things,

[29:54] and in no way to what undergo, right? So when God says in in the book of Revelation there, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Well, in a sense, that's by antonomasia, right? Because He's not the only beginning, but He is the beginning, right? Okay, because maxime, most of all, belongs to Him to be the active beginning.

[30:27] Now the definition or notion of an active beginning belongs to the active ability, right? For the active ability is a beginning of acting another, but the passive ability is a beginning of undergoing or suffering another, as the philosopher says in the fifth book of wisdom. Since again, the ninth book, but the fifth book, he's distinguishing the meanings of the words, right? It remains, therefore, that in God most of all is there the active ability.

[31:00] huh? But now the objections here are very important to see, you know, exactly how these words are used and should be used. The first one was saying, well, first matter is pure ability, right? God is pure act. Well, let's not mix up the two. Let's not be followers of David of Dinant and so on. Now, to the first, therefore, should be said that the active ability is not divided against act, and we divide ability against act.

[31:36] We're thinking of the what passive ability, huh? So the active ability is not divided against act, but it's founded in it. It's because I have some kind of actuality that's something to give another, right? It's because the fire is actually hot that it can give the air somewhat heat, yeah.

[32:02] For each thing acts according as it is in act, huh? but it's the passive ability that is divided against what acta. So that's that's the very important distinction then, right? Okay. So we divide ability and act. We're thinking of the passive ability is divided against act. And when we're saying that act is better than ability, we're thinking of the more the passive ability. But the active ability is not divided against act, but it's founded in it, right?

[32:38] Because each thing acts as far as it's an act. Whence this ability is not excluded from God. Whence this ability is excluded from God, the passive one, but not the what active one. Is that all clear to everybody? Okay.

[33:03] Now the second objection is saying, "Well, doesn't Aristotle teach there in the ninth book of Wisdom that act is better than ability? Okay. To the second, it should be said, Thomas says, that whenever act is other from ability, that means what in things, right? Is necessary that act be more noble than what ability?

[33:33] But the action of God is not other from His ability. We pointed that out before, right? The divine substance, the divine ability to understand, is not something other than His understanding itself. But both is the divine essence, right? Divine nature, because neither is His being, His existence, other from His essence. If there

[34:05] were other than God's essence, then His essence would, in some way, be in a passive ability, right? Need to be perfected, not be altogether perfect, altogether but good, right?

[34:20] Whence is not necessary that to be something more what noble than the what ability or power of God? Okay. Now the third objection. This comes out. Thomas says, "Quaestiones disputatae de potencia." Right. There's about ten questions, and each one's got you know many articles on. And in the Merelli edition, that's in the second volume of the Questiones disputatae. There's two volumes, Merelli. The first one has got the Questiones disputatae de veritate.

[35:00] You could say disputatae too. And then the second volume has the De Potentia and the De Malo, you know, and a lot, lot of other ones in there. On hope and so on, right? It's the one on hope. It's an opera. He answers that question that I first raised in my mind, you know. You know, Saint Paul says that it remains these three: faith, hope, and charity.

[35:26] But the greatest of these is charity. Well, then I asked the next question, you know, which is greater, faith or hope? Which is second, right? And then one of my friends pointed out to this text in the treatise on in the stupid question on hope where he says that hope is greater than faith, yeah. But sometimes, when Thomas gives us some explanation of faith, hope, and charity, we can kind of see this, right?

[35:51] He says, by faith we know the end. By hope, we tend towards the end. By charity, we're already in a way joined to the end. So obviously to be joined to the end in some ways the best of all. Next best is to be tending towards the end, right? And the least is to know the end. Now that's important to know what the end is, right? You can't tend towards the end until.

[36:17] And but it's best of all to be in some way joined to the end, okay? It's a beautiful thing there at the end, kind of striking. Remember Saint Teresa of Avila says, one place there, I don't know what more I can have in heaven than I have now. Our union is already complete. And it's kind of beautiful, beautifully said, you know. These two kind of contrasted, of course.

[36:42] You know, the vision is the whole reward. It just shows the emphasis upon love there in the woman, you know. Well said though, the sentence, huh? So by charity you're already in some way joined to the end. And that's why when the end comes, which is to see God as He is, charity will remain, although it exists even more perfectly than it does in this life. But hope will go away because there won't be tending towards the end anymore.

[37:09] You're there. And and and faith will be gradually replaced by seeing God as He is, huh? So another Carmelite blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, she says, you know, heaven is in my soul. Well, if heaven is where God is, God's in my soul. Yeah. Certainly. Sometimes

[37:36] they explain those words, you know, we're talking about the greatness of John the Baptist, but he was least in the kingdom of heaven. It's greater, you know, than John. And how does this mean, you know? Well, it means that the one who's least in the kingdom of heaven already sees God face to face, as John doesn't yet see face to face. And once you see God face to face, you're going to love Him more than you could in this life.

[37:58] So maybe the lowest person in heaven loves God actually more, although John's going to, you know, in the end love God even more than that person. It's kind of interesting. See that. Now the third objection here is very important because this is something that comes up in the De Potentia too. The question is just about it. The third objection is saying that ability is a beginning of what operation or doing.

[38:28] Well, the operation of God is His essence, and there's no beginning of God's essence, right? But Thomas says to the third, it should be said that potency or ability or power in created things is not only a beginning of action but also of some effect. So it's going to be able to be said of God more by reason of being a beginning of an effect than beginning of operation.

[38:59] Thus, therefore, in God is saved the notion of ability or power, as regards this, that it is a beginning of the effect. Not, however, as regards this, that it is a beginning of what action, because that action is the very divine essence, right? Then he qualifies that just a little bit, right? Except perhaps according to the way of understanding, right? In so far as the divine essence, which in itself, right, has beforehand, right, simply whatever of perfection there is in created things, right, and therefore can be understood under the notion of action and under the notion of what power, right?

[39:51] Just as it is understood under the notion of a what supposit having the nature and under the notion of nature, right? Okay. So we we say sometimes, and we say,

[40:09] does God have any goodness? Well, isn't there a distinction there between the have and the had? And why do we say God has goodness? We say that's only secundum modum intelligendi, right? You see. And we went back and talked about that, especially talked about the names, right?

[40:35] But if we said that God is goodness itself, since goodness signifies that by which something is good, we wouldn't be saying that God is good. We'd be saying is that by which something is good, and we want to say just that about God. We want to say that God is good, right? Once you say God is good, you seem to be saying that he's he has goodness, and therefore there's some what composition in God between God and his goodness, and that's also wrong, right?

[41:15] So in one sense, as Dionysius says, and Thomas follows him there, any name is inadequate to God, right? So if we said God is good to bring out the fact that he really is good, we seem to be at the same time admitting some kind of composition in God. We say God is goodness itself to bring out his simplicity, right?

[41:43] That's good, but then we seem to be saying is that by which things are good rather than good himself. So neither way, we have to use both ways, right? But one to emphasize his goodness. Is being good, and the other to emphasize is what simplicity, right? So,

[42:07] but that's kind of in our way of understanding, right? Yeah. Why is it it would be wrong to say that God is that by which things are good? Well, I wouldn't be wrong, but but that's not to admit that He's good, though. Okay. But if you say He's good, then you say He has goodness, right? And you seem to be implying some distinction between the have or in the had.

[42:34] Okay. Okay. It's kind of hard to say you have yourself. Right. I suppose you do have yourself in some sense. In some way. Yeah, yeah. But you see, the reason that Thomas gives is because we know God and all things from sensible things, right? And sensible things form in perfection, and what has the form of perfection, there's some distinction between them, right? So our concrete names name what has the perfection or has the goodness or has the the knowledge or whatever it is, and the abstract names signify the perfection of goodness itself.

[43:15] And so we have those two ways of naming things, and we have to use them talking about God, but we realize neither one exactly fits them.

[43:25] Okay. But in the other case, there's a real what distinction, right? Okay. Except he says, according perhaps to the way of understanding, right? Insofar as the divine essence, which in itself simply has beforehand whatever perfection there is in created things, can be understood both under the notion of action, right, and under the notion of what power. Just as He is understood both under the notion of the what individual, you might say, having the nature, and under the notion of the nature, right?

[44:18] Same with all these things, you know. You say, is God wise, or is He is is is He wisdom itself? Wisdom doesn't signify in the same way that wise does, right?

[44:32] And you know, in me, does is my wisdom, if I have any, or my knowledge, does my knowledge know anything? No, I'm the one who knows, and knowledge is not what knows, but that by which I know. And if I have some wisdom, then I'm wise, right? But is my wisdom wise, or is it I that's wise? What's my reason? That is wise through its wisdom, right?

[45:04] Okay. Now, what is it in God, right? Is He wise, or is He wisdom itself? Well, we're going to say both, but for different reasons, right? We're almost back to almost with those two metaphors, right? We're going to call him fire and water, but but it's not quite as bad as that. But we're going to call him wisdom itself because there's no composition in God between God and His wisdom, right?

[45:37] There's no composition between the half and the half, right? Like there is in you and I. We have some wisdom, right? If we have some wisdom, it's not us.

[45:48] But whatever wisdom God has is Himself, and so the beautiful way of speaking there, you know, whatever God has is God. Is that true of me? Whatever I have, if I have some health, I guess I still got some health. I don't know. Is that me? I have some strength. I can still, you know, lift my cups and so on. But is that strength me?

[46:19] If I have some knowledge, right? I have some geometry in me, as you can see once in a while, a little bit peeking out. But is that me? My knowledge, my geometry.

[46:32] I have a little bit of logic, you know. But am I my logic? And God, His wisdom is Himself, right? But we still can't just say that God is wisdom, because then we kind of deal out of the picture the fact that He's wise.

[46:58] So we we can't overcome our human way of knowing, right, in talking about God in this life. Just like we say, you know, we have some thoughts about the substance of God and some thoughts about the doing of God, what He does, right? But we realize that this distinction is not what in God, right? The same thing in God, but there's a distinction in our our knowledge.

[47:39] Just a little bit aside that I was kind of reading recently about the incarnation there of Christ, the Word, and you know, we say in the one hand that the Word was made flesh, right? So we get the word incarnation, I guess. And then

[48:00] we say that the Holy Spirit overshadowed, right, Mary, right? Now, when you say that the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, how's that being said? I think it's being said by appropriation.

[48:29] In other words, is the incarnation an effect of the Holy Spirit, and not of the Father and the and God the Son, or is that an effect of the whole? Yeah. But it's appropriate to the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit proceeds by way of love, and this becoming man is especially a what sign of the divine love for us. So it's appropriate to the Holy Spirit.

[49:00] Just like in the creed, we say, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth." Right? Well, is He alone Almighty? Is He alone the Creator? No, but

[49:18] it's appropriating Him because of what personally characterizes the Father, right? But now, when you come to the Word was made flesh, right? The Word became man. Is that appropriation? No, there you don't mean that God became man, God standing, you know, because then the Father and the Holy Spirit would become man too, right? No, there it's the Word of God is distinguished from God the Father and God the Holy Spirit,

[49:55] and so they did not become flesh, right? So there you are not speaking by appropriation. You say the Word was made flesh, right? It's not as if God, you know, in His divine nature, in someone became flesh, and then we appropriate to the Son because of some special reason. No, no. So even in in those things, you've got to see that distinction.

[50:26] Because the Word was made flesh, in so far as the Word is really distinct from the Holy Spirit and from the Father, right? But when you say that the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, right, and is a cause of this incarnation, right, we don't mean that the Holy Spirit, insofar as is really distinct from the Father and the Son, He did this, right? No, it's by appropriation.

[51:06] So the one is said of the Word insofar as is distinct from the others; the other is not said of the Holy Spirit, as is distinct from the others, but said of Him because of an appropriation. They'll come up in the the Treatise and the Trinity, you know. These things are not very often said very precisely. but that's really the difference. I think when the average person says that the Holy Spirit overshadowed Him, they probably just think of what's the Holy Spirit did, right?

[51:36] You know, well, you got to be careful, right? That'll get you into trouble, right? But vice versa, get you in trouble if you said the Word was made flesh as appropriation, then you're really in serious trouble, you know. Really in serious trouble.

[51:57] Let's come to as they say very much in question is disputatio de potentia, right? The power in God. Secundum rem is a beginning of the what effect, right? Okay, but not of the what operation, right? It's only a beginning of the operation of God, secundum modum intelligendi, right? Okay.

[52:25] So you know, if we say these things about God, we say, "Does God have a will?" We'd say, "Yeah, God's got a will, right? Not my will, but thine be done." So he attributes will to God, right? Our Lord himself, that's right. And but now the will is

[52:45] the source of willing, right? But now is the will of God really a source of his willing? Is there a real distinction between the two, right? No, there's an axiom in philosophy, right? That nothing is a beginning of itself,

[53:13] like the axiom of before and after, right? Nothing is before after itself, right? So if nothing is beginning of itself, and the divine will is the beginning of what willing, that from which the willing proceeds, right? Then the divine will would not be the divine willing, right? You're in serious problems here. You're in serious trouble now, right? Very serious trouble. So

[53:48] can you speak of the divine will as the beginning of the divine willing? Well, not really, not secundum rem, right? Perhaps forte. He says in those words, nisi forte, unless perhaps. Forte means perhaps, I guess, right? Unless perhaps secundum modum intelligendi, right? What does that mean? What means that we start from ourselves, right, to think about God, right? And the study of the soul is the what doorway to studying the God and the angels and so on.

[54:30] And in us, the will and the willing are not the same thing. And the will is the beginning of the willing, right? Okay, it's the source of the willing, right? And so we've got these two thoughts in our mind of our will and our willing, and they correspond to two different things in us. And then we try to talk about God, right? We have these two thoughts, and we've got to be very careful.

[54:58] Because the divine will and the divine willing are not two things, but are the same thing. So only in our way of understanding, starting from us, in our, you know, distinction between our will and our willing, in the back of our mind, right, leads us to use these two words in talking about God. And Scripture does too. It's not just us, right? Not my will, but thy will be done, right?

[55:26] Huh. Um. But you talk about the divine power, right? Huh. And the effect, then you're having real what distinction, right? Huh. So that's a beautiful axiom, right? Nothing is the beginning of itself.

[55:53] Does the divine will view the beginning of its willing? In a sense, you've got to bring in the will because if God didn't have a will, could He will?

[56:06] If. God didn't have a mind, could He understand anything? But if He had a beginning, would He be God? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You say, well, that's the way we understand it, right? But that's in our understanding, right? You got to

[56:26] be very careful these things, right? I looking at the Summa Contra Gentiles not so long ago on the Trinity again and the Christ. There, he takes up a little more extension. explicitly, you know, the heresies, right? Of course, one of these guys Photinus, I guess, you know, for whom the Father and the Son are really the same. The only difference, you know, in our way of looking at things, right?

[56:51] Because he's called the Father in himself, but he's called God the Son because He became flesh, right? Well, now he's denying the real distinction between the Father and the Son, right? That's the most serious mistake, right? And Thomas will take some time to refute that, right? It shows that it's false from Scripture, right? So you got to be very careful when you're saying there's a distinction there, a real distinction, right?

[57:18] And is a what distinction in reason? But anyway, what's relevant to the case right here is that the distinction between the power or ability of God and the operation of God is not a distinction of things, but the distinction between the divine power and the effect of that power, the creature like you and me, that's a real distinction, right? I really am an effect of God, and I'm not God.

[57:55] You must know by now. That's beautiful way that he's extended there. So just go back to the beginning of that third reply. That power in created things is not only a beginning of action, but also the effect, right? Thus, therefore, in God is saved the notion of power or ability as regards this, that it is a beginning of effect, not, however, as it is a beginning of action.

[58:37] And later on, he has a little qualification, but you know, we should understand this according to the way of understanding, right? So could we understand that God wills without having a will?

[59:03] But to understand that correctly, we have to realize that that distinction is in our our thinking, and not in God. The first distinction in God, the first distinction in reality, is the distinction of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. It's really something.

[59:28] Okay, now the fourth objection is a little different here, but it's interesting. Now goes talking about this and the divine knowledge and will, right? To the fourth, it should be said that the power of God is not placed in God as something different from His what knowledge and will secundum rem, right? That's the keyword, but only secundum rationem, according to what our thought.

[59:59] In so far as ability or power implies right, the thought of a beginning carrying out that which the will what commands, and that to which the knowledge directs, which three things belong to God according to the same.

[1:00:24] That's one way of saying it, right? Or it should be said that the what knowledge or the divine will, according as it is a what beginning of an effect, in Latin, has the notion of a what ability or power, right? So it's like saying the divine knowledge and the divine will, considered as a beginning of an effect, can be called the divine power. Okay, not as if it's something different from them, right?

[1:01:03] But the divine knowledge and the divine will, as such, don't name this what beginning of an effect, right? Whence the consideration of the knowledge and the will precedes in God the consideration of the what ability or power, as the cause precedes the operation and the effect, right? So it makes sense to take up the divine knowledge and divine will before the divine power, right? Even though they're not different things.

[1:01:40] So I guess we have to stop here now. We'll go on to Article Two there. Maybe on Thursday, maybe on Wednesday, maybe another week. We'll.